As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn.
But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as
they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
“Hi!” he shouted. “Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!” Then, seeing that they
either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit.
Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford,
shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry
silence.
Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no
doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them
seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the
spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and
breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined
to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if
necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow
at bottom, although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out
that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they
talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses
needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them
came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance
considerably in the next few minutes.
He bethought him of using his lungs once more. “Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
you!”
“He curses you in a most intimate manner,” quoth Trenchard.
Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. “His voice has a familiar
sound,” said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
goaded beast.
“Wait!” the fellow shouted. “I have news--news for you!”
“It's Vallancey!” cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn
rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the
discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to
which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his
vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very
angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for
not having stopped when he bade them.
“It was no doubt discourteous,” said Mr. Wilding “but we took you for
some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's.”
“Are they after you?” quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very
startled.
“Like enough,” said Trenchard, “if they have found their horses yet.”
“Forward, then,” Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up
his reins again. “You shall hear my news as we ride.”
“Not so,” said Trenchard. “We have business here down yonder at the
ford.”
“Business? What business?”
They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
impatiently. “That's no matter now.
“Not yet, perhaps,” said Mr. Wilding; “but it will be if that letter
gets to Whitehall.”
“Odso!” was the impatient retort, “there's other news travelling to
Whitehall that will make small-beer of this--and belike it's well on its
way there already.”
“What news is that?” asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. “The Duke has
landed--he came ashore this morning at Lyme.”
“The Duke?” quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. “What
Duke?”
“What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of
Monmouth, man.”
“Monmouth!” They uttered the name in a breath. “But is this really
true?” asked Wilding. “Or is it but another rumour?”
“Remember the letter your friends intercepted,” Trenchard bade him.
“I am not forgetting it,” said Wilding.
“It's no rumour,” Vallancey assured them. “I was at White Lackington
three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to
carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it
for our friends at the Red Lion.”
Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
But Wilding found it still almost impossible--in spite of what already
he had learnt--to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the
Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded
precipitation.
“You heard the news at White Lackington?” said he slowly. “Who carried
it thither?”
“There were two messengers,” answered Vallancey, with restrained
impatience, “and they were Heywood Dare--who has been appointed
paymaster to the Duke's forces--and Mr. Chamberlain.”
Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
by the wrist. “You saw them?” he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
unusual sound. “You saw them?”
“With these two eyes,” answered Vallancey, “and I spoke with them.”
It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
face. “I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
hairbrain,” said he contemptuously.
Vallancey proceeded to details. “Dare and Chamberlain,” he informed
them, “came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put
ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news,
returning afterwards to Lyme.”
“What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?” asked Wilding.
“Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.”
“A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a
hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.”
“He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,” put in
Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered
at one.
“Does he bring money and arms, at least?” asked Wilding.
“I did not ask,” answered Vallancey. “But Dare told us that three
vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some
manner of provision with him.”
“It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,” quoth
Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
between tall hedges where ran the road. “I think it were wise to be
moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
the matter of that letter.”
Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
horse a few paces nearer the hedge, “Whither now, Anthony?” he asked
suddenly.
“You may ask, indeed!” exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter
as ever Trenchard had heard it. “'S heart! We are in it now! We had
best make for Lyme--if only that we may attempt to persuade this
crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with
him.”
“There's sense in you at last,” grumbled Trenchard. “But I misdoubt me
he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?” he asked.
He could be very practical at times.
“A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.”
“And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way
of cutting us off?”
“We'll double back as far as the cross-roads,” said Wilding promptly,
“and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do
it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally
take it we have made for Bridgwater.”
They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme
to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had
said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took
it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers.
On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they
should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by.
Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted
it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from
this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of
his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in
Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take
a peep at the pursuers.
They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have
expected. There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not
expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head
of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake--obviously leading it--and with him
was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes,
whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for
Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and
Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the
incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider
again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the
problem, as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and
went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly
never doubting which way their quarry had sped.
As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town
gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of
his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as
to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading
the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr.
Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was
confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service
to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone
through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's
tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to
be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So
he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in spite of Albemarle's
expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly
purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he
believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth
Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her must lie
fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of
widowing her.
As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and
to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
what he might be the leader.
“We'll stay here,” said he, “until they have passed the crest of the
hill.”
This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
“Ss!” he hissed. “Horses!”
And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at
hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through
which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other
sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood,
barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between
them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat
lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained
absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if
these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
“There are not more than three,” whispered Trenchard, who had been
listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a
blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were
returning to Bridgwater.
They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
it to keep his seat.
Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
“Mistress Wilding,” he called to her. “A moment, if I may detain you.”
“You have eluded them!” she cried, entirely off her guard in her
surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of
genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The
next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were
veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively
satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him
captured already or at least upon the point of capture.
She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to
the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it
had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man,
and she was--although she did not realize it--in danger of being proud
of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It
was possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she
had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible
that he had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which
would not permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead--however
much that other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared
for Mr. Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude,
and it was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the
tything-men from winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got
well away.
Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom--on a horse which Sir Edward
Phelips insisted upon lending them--she rode homeward from Taunton,
there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last
for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his
chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was
her right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful;
there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet
she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he
had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won
in her eyes by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This
chance, it seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared
before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance,
vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings
whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.
In answer to her cry of “You have eluded them!” he waved a hand towards
the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
“They passed that way but a few moments since,” said he, “and by the
rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now.
In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so
close at hand,” he added with a smile, “and for that I am thankful.”
She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of
all patience with her. “Come, Jerry,” Diana called to the groom. “We
will walk our horses up the hill.”
“You are very good, madam,” said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the
withers of his roan.
Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went
ahead followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast
he bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
“Before I go,” said he, “there is something I should like to say.” His
dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
this moment she had not thought--something connected with the fateful
matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its
sting is to the bee--a thing which if once used in self-defence is
self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might
hold him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer
in case to invoke the law.
Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed
it and read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be
mistaken, no more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who
looks behind him in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
“Of what are you afraid?” he asked her.
“I am not afraid,” she answered in husky accents that belied her.
Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the
dusty road.
“The thing I have to tell you,” said he presently, “concerns myself.”
“Does it concern me?” she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression
as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair
that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
“Surely, madam,” he answered dryly, “what concerns a man may well
concern his wife.”
She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. “True,” said she,
her voice expressionless. “I had forgot.”
He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or
two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
“I do protest,” said he, “you treat me less kindly than I deserve.” He
urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and
then drew rein once more. “I think that I may lay some claim to--at
least--your gratitude for what I did to-day.”
“It is my inclination to be grateful,” said she. She was very wary of
him. “Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful.”
“But of what?” he cried, a thought impatiently.
“Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that
you came?”
“Unless you think that it was to save Blake,” he said ironically. “What
other ends do you conceive I could have served?” She made him no answer,
and so he resumed after a pause. “I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
suffer in my stead--not even though, as these men, they were but caught
in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself.”
“Ruining yourself?” she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
“Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall
have reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I
own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and
proscribed? Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my
misfortunes. You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself
by compelling you against your will to marry me.
“I'll not deny that it is in my mind,” said she, and of set purpose
stifled pity.
He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. “Can you deny my
magnanimity, I wonder?” said he, and spoke almost as one amused. “All I
had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare
of his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much
I sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!” And he paused, looking at her
and waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
“Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence
of kindness.” She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They
seemed to ask him to explain. “When you came this morning with the
tale of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he
was caught in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was
before the King's folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been
addressed to him, and not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been
meant for me, do you know what news it was you brought me?” He paused
a second, looking at her from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own
question. “You brought me the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er
I pleased. Whilst that letter was in your hands it gave you the power to
make me your obedient slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst
you held it, and I was a vane that must turn to your blowing for my
honour's sake and for the sake of the cause in which I worked. Through
no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the King's
friends, else was I dishonoured. It was an effective barrier between us.
So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you pleased, and
I must dance to the tune you set. And then this morning what you came to
tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine to call the tune.
Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been mine now, and
your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope of their own
weaving.”
She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
aspect of the case she had not considered.
“You realize it, I see,” he said, and smiled wistfully. “Then perhaps
you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my
generosity, asking me--though I scarcely think you understood--to beggar
myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
had I not refused you and the bargain you offered--a bargain that you
would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked.”
At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
“I had not thought of it!” she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
from her. “I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding,” she turned to him, holding out a
hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, “I shall have a kindness
for you... all my days for your... generosity to-day.” It was lamentably
weak, far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
“Yes, I was generous,” he admitted. “We will move on as far as the
cross-roads.” Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the
ford Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was
in sight ahead or behind them. “After you left me,” he continued, “your
memory and your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our
position thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done.
I loved you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was
master of me. But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly.” He
checked the passion that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after
a pause, in the calm, slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own.
“There is scarce the need for so much recapitulation. When the power
was mine I bent you unfairly to my will; you did as much by me when
the power suddenly became yours. It was a strange war between us, and I
accepted its conditions. To-day, when the power was mine again, mine
to bring you at last to subjection, behold, I have capitulated at
your bidding, and all that I held--including your own self--have I
relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed
you before I had wooed you.” Again his tone changed, it grew more cold,
more matter-of-fact. “I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man,
my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could
carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I
have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to check the
iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love. I'll not
weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all things, and
by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard that so
carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been, maybe, in
condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I learn
that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him.”
“To what end?” she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
“To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this
ruin, I should not have stirred a foot in that direction--so rash, so
foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,”--he shrugged and
laughed--“it is the only hope--all forlorn though it may be--for me.”
The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
her lips quivered.
“Anthony, forgive me,” she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
first time upon her lips.
“What have I to forgive?” he asked.
“The thing that I did in the matter of that letter.”
“You poor child,” said he, smiling gently upon her, “you did it in
self-defence.”
“Yet say that you forgive me--say it before you go!” she begged him.
He considered her gravely a moment. “To what end,” he asked, “do you
imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you
that however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends;
and that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have
your forgiveness ere I go.”
She was weeping softly. “It was an ill day on which we met,” she sighed.
“For you--aye.”
“Nay--for you.
“We'll say for both of us, then,” he compromised. “See, Ruth, your
cousin grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt
impatient to be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts.
Some amends I have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have
done you for which there is but one amend to make.” He paused. He
steadied himself before continuing. In his attempt to render his voice
cold and commonplace he went near to achieving harshness. “It may be
that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already alight
will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow of you.
When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong I
did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might have loved me. I sought to force
it.” He smiled ever so wanly. “Perhaps that was my mistake. It is an
ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass.” He raised to his lips the
little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist. “God keep you, Ruth!”
he murmured.
She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
knowing it, forbore.
He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him;
but at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust
out into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old
player's harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous
with impatience.
“What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?” he
cried, to which Vallancey added: “In God's name, let us push on.”
At that she checked her impulse--it may even be that she mistrusted it.
She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse
once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.